Sergio van Dijk opened the scoring midway through the first half, heading home from Lucas Pantelis' cross.

The Australians then wrapped up the victory with 20 minutes remaining when Matthew Leckie's powerful header rattled the underside of the crossbar and bounced over the line.

The victory means Adelaide top Group H and are in a strong position to qualify for the knockout stage.

"It was a great win," said Vidmar. "I think it was really important that we backed up from our good win against Pohang Steelers.

"The group's mentality has been fantastic. The confidence amongst the players and within the group is very good at this point of time and winning does that."

Goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic was again a standout between the posts, but Vidmar was full of praise for all of his charges as they once again carried out the game plan to tremendous effect.

"He (Galekovic) is a fantastic keeper, we know that and at the right times he made two fantastic saves, but he wasn't the only one that was fantastic tonight," Vidmar said.

"I thought our two centre halves Robbie Cornthwaite and Iain Fyfe were fantastic, Sergio up front and our midfielders were absolutely brilliant, they stay disciplined, we executed our corner extremely well and we knew that was probably an area that we could have got a little bit of joy out of and we certainly did, it was a fantastic goal from Leckie.

"The group's mentality has been fantastic...the confidence amongst the players and within the group is very good at this point of time and winning does that.

"The performance tonight, you could see that they were stubborn, there was no way they were going to concede the goal, they were desperate in defence and everything worked very well for us."

Shandong coach Branko Ivankovic was disappointed his side could not make the most of home advantage.

"I am very disappointed, particularly as it was our first ACL match at home this year," he said. "The period before the next ACL contest is crucial for Shandong. We have to use the time to prepare well.

"Some of our players must adapt to the team and the ACL atmosphere."

In the group's other game, Brazilian Almir struck deep into injury time to give Asian Champions League holders Pohang Steelers a 2-1 win over Sanfrecce Hiroshima at the Steelyard.

Hwang Jae-won headed Pohang into the lead early in the second half but the Japanese newcomers thought they had secured a point when Ilian Stoyanov converted a late penalty.

However, Almir headed home from close range to secure the three points for the South Koreans.

"This was a tough game for us but it was good to see that the players had the belief even after they equalised to keep trying to get the winning goal," said Pohang coach Waldemar Lemos. "You never know when a goal will come and you never know who is going to score."

Sanfrecce coach Mihailo Petkovic was disappointed his side were unable to hold on for a point but admitted it was always going to be tough against the defending champions.

"Both teams played well," said the Serbian. "We knew that this wasn't going to be an easy game. Both teams have some very good players."